


someday

by MaddieandChimney



Series: Maddie Buckley Week 2020 [1]
Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:20:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25668850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaddieandChimney/pseuds/MaddieandChimney
Summary: Maddie Buckley Week Day 1 - "I want to marry you." + Love
Relationships: Maddie Buckley/Howie "Chimney" Han
Series: Maddie Buckley Week 2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1861234
Kudos: 7





	someday

Maddie is six months pregnant when she broaches the subject for the first time, although she’s been thinking about it for a while beforehand. One hand rests on her growing stomach as she leans against the kitchen counter, just staring at her boyfriend before the words fall from her lips in a rush, completely out of context of the current topic of conversation and also, partway through what he’s saying. “I want to marry you.”

“Uh, is that a proposal?”

She can hear the nervous laughter in his voice as he looks at her, brow raised with only the slight trace of a smile on his lips. “No, it’s—I just wanted you to know that. I want to marry you but I don’t know if I’m ready for that and I know you’re okay with waiting, I just needed you to know that—I do want that. With you. Someday.” It’s a similar conversation to one they’ve had before and even for a second, despite the fact she’s carrying his child, she still feels that doubt building inside of her. Loving her can’t be easy, she supposes, he had probably heard the word ‘someday’ more in their relationship than he had from anyone else. Yet, he’s still there, still smiling, still reminding her how lucky she is every day.

“Then consider it noted.” He smiles at her and Maddie still feels that feeling in her chest that somehow pulls her towards him to wrap her arms around his shoulders. There’s an apology on the tip of her tongue, words she knows he won’t want to hear because whatever insecurity she’s feeling about how she’s made him feel won’t be true. The residing guilt remains, it always does from the time he had told her that he loved her and she hadn’t been able to repeat those exact words back to him because of past experience. And she was trying so hard, to stop seeing her life as ‘post-Doug’ but there were things, traumas she couldn’t push past as easily as she had once believed she would.

‘I love you’ seemed such simple words to say aloud, she could remember saying it a thousand times as a teenager to her friends but those three words held a completely different meaning within every fibre of her being for a while. Even at six months pregnant, she hadn’t been able to voice those words aloud. “I think about it a lot.” Maddie thinks she should stop talking, but his hands are against her bump and he has that pondering look on his face that drives her to carry on talking.

“I do too, Maddie but you’re not ready and that’s okay. I’m not going anywhere.” Maddie loves the way he casually slips his hands up her top, thumb brushing along the bare skin of her stomach as she takes a deep breath, grazing her own fingers along the back of his neck.

“What I’m trying to say is that I love you.” The words fall from her lips with relative ease, although she feels as though she’s been stopping herself for a few months. But once said aloud, it feels so right, as though she’s already said it a thousand times (and she has, in her head, she supposes) but for him, it’s the first time he’s heard her say it in so many words.

The tears in his eyes and the smile on his face prompts her to repeat herself, her heart thumping so hard, she’s almost worried he’ll be able to hear it, “I love you and I want to marry you one day. I want everything with you, Howie.”

“I love you too, Maddie.” The crack in his voice when he talks is enough to drive her to press her lips against his, moving her hands to either side of his face as his travel to rest on her lower back. It’s easy to melt into his touch, to get lost in the feel of his lips against her own and to forget every ounce of doubt she’d had in the moments before.

They only pull back when their unborn daughter delivers a hard kick to her stomach, causing Maddie to drop her hand from the back of his neck to rest on her bump as she laughs. Her other hand moving to gently rest on his cheek, her nose scrunching up as she just takes a second to admire him and to bask in the knowledge that she is so completely enamoured with a man who would never, even for a second, think about hurting her intentionally.

“I really love you, Howard Han.”

His smile shines brightly, his eyes full of unshed tears as he takes a breath, “And I really love you,” His hand presses to her stomach once more, leaning down only to press his lips against the clothed skin, “and you. I love both my girls, so much.”


End file.
